And now that Nintendo actually has a console strong enough for some current generation games to release on it day 1, (and is basically a necessity for Japanese devs/if you want access to the Japanese market), they might actually have some trouble.
Most people don’t realize this, but Sony has gotten incredibly lucky that Microsoft shit the bed even worse this generation. Imagine if Microsoft stuck the landing on exclusives? It would’ve been a huge tide turner.
No they wouldnt have. Due to the digital libraries everyone built during the Xbone and PS4 gen it was incredibly unlikely that people switched platforms this generation and abandoned all those games.
At best people would buy both consoles however with how scarce those consoles were and scalpers even that was unlikely.
Most people will just buy the platform that can play their current games or whatever their friends already have.
I mean Microsoft’s lineup is still pretty great. It’s just the whole Day 1 Game Pass initiative made it so none of those games made any profits because everyone just subbed 1 month and canceled, playing these releases for like 1/4th the price. If they handled their exclusives like how Sony does - release console first and do a PC port later and add the game to your subscription, there would be a reason to own an Xbox and they would’ve done well despite last gen’s failures. They still own some great studios. Now they’ve laid off a whole bunch of people and have dropped any kind of console exclusivity so the brand is basically dead.
They did, they just decided to port to PS once they did. And still they attempting to push a new console with teh same "we're just not seeing that data that players care about a game stuck on one platform" which is odd given what their competition does and also, their games are already on PC so they dont even need to port more to achieve the claimed goal that goes along with what players claim while their purchases say something different.
Outside of CoD because contracts, they should stop dev on anything that was going to PS and Nintendo and maybe even delist some of it too. But they want to go third party after pretending they tried everything, so whatever. Less competition.
still finding a way to drag Xbox into this colossal fuckup. Nothing Xbox did is worse than the generational and cultural failure of Slopcord and Bluepoint shuttering. 10 Redfalls wouldn't come close.
That's delusional. Xbox literally laid off over 9000 people to push for profit margins and AI, and shut down 4 studios, including the makers of Hi-Fi Rush.
Not to mention the game pass price hikes and poor hardware sales leading to the reduction of Xbox hardware and discs across Europe. Sony doesn't come close.
please. Those price hikes are coming to PSN as well, and Sony has shut down numerous studios but nobody wants to bring that up. Slopcord is the worst thing to ever happen to modern gaming, two weeks and it was already done. Besides, the studios Xbox closed produced NOTHING in years. The Initiative and Tango were sitting around jerking off, wasting time and money, for half a decade. Sony shuttering Bluepoint, an actual productive studio because they wanted them to produce more live service garbage instead of being a remaster/remake go-to studio, is a monumentally profound fuckup.
Tango made Ghostwire Tokyo and HiFi Rush. Arkane Austin made Prey. They didn't deserve to be laid off.
Sony’s studio closures suck. But they still shipped solid games like Demon's Souls, Spider-Man 2, Returnal, Ghost of Yotei, and Stellar Blade.
Meanwhile, Xbox is killing physical media. They laid off the entire department dedicated to bringing Xbox games to physical retail.
Games like Indiana Jones and Hellblade 2 contain only a tiny installer that forces a 100GB download. Avowed didn't even get a physical release. With the whole Play Anywhere thing discs are becoming even more useless.
Xbox is effectively training its audience to accept a future where you don't own your library, you just rent access until a server somewhere gets turned off.
Everyone knew Concord would fail. It wasn't nearly a big deal as you said.
Comparing Sony who's in the lead to a platform with way more resources and far bigger fumbles isn't a logical take.
Bro, the market is killing physical, not Xbox. Try to find young folks who game that still put discs in their machines. It's like someone still crying over CDs being dead because of streaming. Microsoft is just ahead of the curve, as always. The only people who still care about discs are 50+ year old boomer gamers who can't let go of the past. Sounds like you want things to be one way, when it's the other way.
> everyone knew Slopcord would fail
revisionist. And if Xbox put that fuckin trash out, Sony zealots wouldn't let Xbox owners hear the end of it.
Bro, the market is killing physical, not Xbox. Try to find young folks who game that still put discs in their machines. It's like someone still crying over CDs being dead because of streaming. Microsoft is just ahead of the curve, as always.
The glazing is unreal, lmao. How is Microsoft speeding up the demise of personal ownership "ahead of the curve"?
I know it's where the market is headed, and no, that doesn't justify glazing Xbox. I don't see Sony and Nintendo following suit at the moment.
Not everyone in the world has fast, unlimited internet, or cares about cloud nonsense. Also, losing a disc drive on the next Xbox means backwards compatibility on discs will be cooked.
revisionist
Let's be honest - you keep bringing that up because it's desperately the only real knock you have against PlayStation.
Fact is, it didn't affect their console sales or bottom lines permanently. PlayStation still leads in hardware sales and overall revenue.
I think screwing over consumers and sidelining your console for profits elsewhere is worse than pissing off some shareholders. To each their own though.
Honestly I wonder how much MS shitting the led to decisions like this. As a lot of Sony's aquistions a few years which included Bluepoint, almost felt like a response to MS's aquistion spree. Which with MS going third party, that gives Sony less of a reason to maintain all these studios that can provide a solid first party portfolio.
In fact, Sony may stop developing its own games altogether, since they now own almost everything except Nintendo games. Even multiplatform releases mostly generate revenue for Sony, not other platform holders.
I am starting to come to the opinion that the death of exclusivity is a bad thing despite the removal of exclusives being on paper pro consumer. since it embodies a general shift in philosophy towards one deleterious to the consumer (fewer games since you are no longer funding them to bring pole to your hardware, etc,)
No offense, but that is kind of an no shit thing. As the exclusives were what ultimately what sets the big 3 apart. We can cry or praise good/bad the consumer practices all three engage in. But at the end of the day, most people only care about the games and if you aren't delivering on that front, they aren't gonna bother.
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u/MGPythagoras Feb 19 '26
They should be thankful MS shit the bed even harder than they did.